A big part of the Packer family farm

He's Australia's richest man, but he pays less than $15 a week to lease more than 600 hectares of prime Hunter Valley real estate from the NSW Department of Lands.

Exactly which of Kerry Packer's 30,000 green and pleasant hectares near Scone are actually under lease has proved hard to pin down. Is it the $6-million Greg Norman-designed golf course, the internationally renowned polo palace or the soon-to-be-operating ruby mine?

From the Department of Lands lease obtained by the Herald under Freedom of Information, all that is clear is that the Crown land is tied up in his Ellerston property. So extensive are the polo facilities alone at Ellerston, the trophy property of Packer's sprawling rural holdings, that he was able to host much of the US Olympic equestrian polo team when it came for the 2000 Olympics.

Packer pays $700 a year to lease 600 hectares from the Crown. He pays $140 a year each for five separate blocks which mostly form part of Ellerston, a holding acquired in 1972, a company official said.

These rental payments are in addition to what he paid for the leasehold when he bought Ellerston in 1972. Leasehold usually almost matches the cost of freehold land.

This week, a ruby mine started up on Packer's nearby Tomalla station. As the fifth-largest landholder in Australia, Packer is estimated to have more than 5 million hectares, most of it in the Northern Territory.

Consolidated Pastoral Co, Packer's rural arm, has upwards of 240,000 head of cattle on its numerous properties. Officials with Consolidated Press are tightlipped about activities at Ellerston, claiming that it does run some sheep and cattle as well as hosting his sporting facilities.

At least some of Packer's Crown leaseholdings form part of Ellerston, although "it's hard to track them all down," said an official.